I have given up. I hate blowing money on things I should be able to make, but drying apples in my dad’s SUV is too slow, so I bought a dehydrator. I got a refurb Excalibur. It ought to do the job.

I put a dozen sliced apples in the SUV on a sliding door screen and gave it two days, but the apples just were not dry enough. Maybe it would work in the summer, but I can’t keep fooling around, trying to get it right.

I was looking at dehydrators online, and I felt stupid, but then I thought about all the stuff I throw out. Most of my peppers and bananas end up rotting because I don’t have any place to put them. I never eat my papayas, because they smell funny, but if they were dried, I think that problem would go away.

Bananas are fantastic. They keep you regular and they taste good. But what do you do when twenty pounds of them get ripe over three days?

Ooooh…pineapples. I wonder how hard those are to grow. Dried pineapples are great, and I have a special culinary use for the fresh stuff.

I guess now I can look into jerky. I don’t even know what cuts to use. It would sure beat paying tons of money for the protein bars I eat when I work at church.

1. Eye of round.
2. You use meat that is reasonably tender, because you will be chewing it at length later.
3. No Fat! That means no marbling at all. Dried beef lasts for months to years; unless there is fat in it, which will putrefy with abandon.
4. The old way of making jerky: http://historicaltrekking.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=148

What about donating your over production of produce? Organizations could include:
-> Drop in centers
-> Homeless shelters
-> Your church’s kitchen, to sell or include in baking
-> Your church’s staff, so they can distribute to the community

I lover pbird’s idea for tropical fruit leather, maybe a spiced version combined with beef!

I appreciate your good intentions, but when people tell me to donate my leftovers and excess produce and so on, it makes me wonder if they’ve ever tried it themselves. It’s very easy to give money to charity, and that’s what I prefer to do. Giving goods and services tends to be extremely difficult and impractical. Generally, charity providers won’t accept random, unsolicited donations, and apart from that, it makes no sense to waste several hours and a lot of fuel driving three dollars’ worth of bananas across town.
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During the Haiti push last year, I saw people trying to make the public understand that their donations of goods were actually causing problems. Money, money, money. That’s what they needed.

I am a long time reader and do not consider myself particularly religous. Yet the last few months I have felt compelled to start storing supplies so your advice/adventures in this area is timely and appreciated.

My dad and I grow gardens each year, with any overabundance. He lives 5 minutes from me and he and I drop off any overabundance of vegetables to them on a drop in basis. We also give freely to local churches (literally across the street) and neighbors.

What those folks choose to do with it is squarely in the Lord’s hands. It probably helps that I don’t deliver in a GM OR a Ford……

I remember Alton Brown’s show on jerky was that he put the meat inbetween furnace air filters (of course no fiberglass) and bungee corded them to a floor fan for a day or two. Looked very good to me. Just a suggestion.